Teleological Argument Quotes Flashcards
Circero on the universe without a designer
“how is it consistent with common sense that the universe, which contains all arts and the artificers, can be void of reason and understanding?”
Behaye on the universe without a designer
“how can one assert that something [with] complexity infinitely beyond our comprehension could have happened without a wise and mighty designer?”
Aquinas on the designer directing nature
“some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God”
Paley on the analogy between watch and nature
“every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater and more”
Paley on chance
“but never was an organised body of any kind the effect of chance”
Paley on design qua purpose
“in no assignable instance hath such a thing [an organised body] existed without intention somewhere”
Paley on design qua regularity
“there is a will which restrains and circumscribes the operations of the most extensive”
Paley on combinations of beings
“Multitudes of conformations may be conceived capable of existence, which yet do not exist”
Polkinghorne on the multiverse
“Bold speculation” and a “metaphysical guess”
Hume on there only being one universe
“How this argument can have place, where the objects are single [and] without specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain.”
(Against TA)
Hume on the lack of empirical evidence
“A very small part of this great system is very imperfectly discovered to us; and do we thence pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole?”
(Against TA)
Hume on the evidential problem of evil
“I allow, that the bad appearances may be compatible with such attributes as you suppose: But surely they can never prove these attributes”
(Against TA)
Hume on the singularity of the deity
“A great number of men join in building a house or ship; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?”
(Against TA)
Hume on God being human-like
“EPICURUS maintained, that no man has ever seen reason but in a human figure; therefore the gods must have a human figure.”
(Against TA)
Russell on teleological argument
“It is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience has been able to produce in millions of years.”
(Against TA)
